Super Bowl Losses Hit Older Fans Harder

Action Points

Explain that a study conducted in the local area of one Super Bowl losing team found significant increases in total deaths and cardiac deaths.

Note that the increase in mortality surrounding a Super Bowl loss was apparently greater for individuals 65 and older than for younger people.

It's hard enough watching your hometown football team lose the Super Bowl, but the stress of that loss may hit older fans harder than their younger counterparts -- potentially even causing fatal heart attacks, researchers found.

In a study of mortality rates in Los Angeles County surrounding the defeat of the-then hometown Rams in 1980, there were significant increases in total deaths and cardiac deaths for both younger and older individuals, according to Robert Kloner, MD, PhD, of LA's Good Samaritan Hospital, and colleagues.

But the absolute increase in the number of daily deaths per 100,000 people was greater among those 65 and older for total deaths (2.57 versus 0.11) and cardiac deaths (1.90 versus 0.05), Kloner and co-authors reported online in Clinical Cardiology.

The interaction between the Super Bowl loss, mortality, and age was statistically significant for both categories of deaths (P<0.05 for both).

"The mechanism for this finding is not known, but it may be that atherosclerotic plaques in elderly patients are more vulnerable to rupture in response to an increase in catecholamines or stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system than are plaques in younger patients," Kloner and his colleagues wrote.

Kloner previously reported that total and cardiac mortality rates increased in LA County after the 1980 Super Bowl loss by the Rams (who moved to St. Louis, Mo. in 1995) and that the total mortality rate decreased after the 1984 Super Bowl victory by the Raiders, who had moved to LA from Oakland the season before.

In the current analysis, Kloner and his colleagues explored the effect of age, sex, and race on the changes in mortality.

The Super Bowl period included the day of the game and the subsequent 14 days. Death rates during that period were compared with death rates from all other days from Jan. 15 to the end of February from the Super Bowl year and subsequent years -- through 1983 for the first game and through 1988 for the second game.

In the 1980s, death certificate data in LA County classified Hispanics as whites, so they were combined for the purposes of the current study.

Following the Super Bowl loss in 1980, rates of death from all causes and cardiac causes increased for both genders and age groups (P<0.05 for all).

Total and cardiac deaths also increased for white/Hispanic individuals, but not for people of other races.

There was a significant interaction between the Super Bowl loss, mortality, and age (P<0.05) -- but not race or gender.

In the two weeks surrounding the Raiders' Super Bowl victory in 1984, there were trends toward reduced all-cause and cardiac deaths in all demographic subgroups. The findings reached statistical significance for both total and cardiac death in women -- but not men -- and for total deaths in individuals 65 and older (P<0.05 for all).

There were, however, no significant interactions between the Super Bowl win, mortality, and age, sex, or race.

In their paper, Kloner and his colleagues speculated that fans' emotional investment in the games might explain why there appeared to be a stronger relationship between mortality and the Super Bowl following the loss.

The emotional toll of the 1980 loss was likely greater because it involved the Rams, who had played in LA and the LA area since 1946 (the 1980 Super Bowl was played in nearby Pasadena). Also, the game itself was intense, with seven lead changes before the Rams ultimately lost the lead and the game in the final quarter.

In contrast, the 1984 game involved the Raiders, who were playing just their second season in the city, and was played in Tampa, Fla. The Raiders held the lead throughout the game and won by a comfortable margin.

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